Op-ed: Slow down on the Purdue-Kaplan deal

In the next month, the Higher Learning Commission will decide whether or not to approve a change of control for the “NewU” (Purdue University Global) created by the Purdue-Kaplan deal.

Given the lack of transparency demonstrated to date, and the questionable operations, history of Kaplan lawsuits, and lack of clarity as to whether Hoosier taxpayers will be on the hook for Kaplan liabilities, we urge the Higher Learning Commission to reject the request. Specific reasons include the following:

1. Faculty were notified very late of this call for comments, with less than five hours to submit comments for the campus visit which was to occur less than 48 hours after notice of it, and only one week for electronic comments. Such a short deadline seems designed to preclude meaningful faculty input. This lack of faculty input is a hallmark of the Purdue administration, despite President Mitch Daniels’ assurance of the opposite.

2. Faculty members on Purdue’s regional campuses (which are over 100 miles distant from the West Lafayette campus) are astounded that no Higher Learning Commission site visits are scheduled with any of the regional campuses. A recent request for additional public forums was rejected by the Higher Learning Commission on the grounds that “ample opportunity has been provided for faculty input;” such claims are quite disingenuous, and flatly false.

3. The lack of transparency by the Purdue administration violates numerous principles important to higher education, because deliberately failing to provide key stakeholders, including the Higher Learning Commission, with relevant and timely information prevents meaningful input (the apparent goal), and will likely lead to sub-optimal decisions. Such lack of transparency indicates a disregard for the oversight role of regulators, including the Higher Learning Commission, which cannot properly evaluate such an acquisition without timely and accurate information being provided.

4. Given the very poor track record of Kaplan U, its tendency to exploit vulnerable populations (e.g., minorities, veterans), its focus on revenue generation as opposed to knowledge dissemination, and its history of spending far more money on administrative functions (e.g., recruitment and marketing) than on instructional functions, it is impossible to fathom how the Purdue administration can claim that the proposed Purdue Global would benefit students or society at large, as opposed to certain financial interests that would stand to gain from a bail-out of a beleaguered and troubled entity in a high-scrutiny field and who seem to see their days of student exploitation for personal financial gain as being numbered.

5. Given that the claims by the Purdue administration publicly are at times questioned the Purdue faculty, it is imperative for the Higher Learning Commission to disentangle public fronts put forth by the Purdue administration in order to ascertain its true motives, and to determine if those motives are, in fact, consistent with the principles of higher education which the Higher Learning Commission must protect. Given that the Higher Learning Commission has a track record (in at least one case) of rejecting an attempt by a for-profit entity from disguising itself as a non-profit, we urge it to do the same in this case, as the goals of such an entity may not be compatible with the land-grant mission of a public university (i.e., to serve the public good).

6. Per the agreement, Purdue Global is entitled to use the Purdue brand in its marketing—which would clearly damage the Purdue brand. Associating the brand of a top-tier public research university with an entity with a track record of being a bottom-feeding predatory for-profit institution will not benefit students, stakeholders, or Hoosiers.

7. Before acting precipitously, the Higher Learning Commission needs to respect the right of Purdue University stakeholders and the taxpayers of Indiana to a fuller accounting of the costs and educational implications involved in launching Purdue Global.

Pittenger, a classical studies professor at Hanover College. is president, and David Nalbone, a psychology professor at Purdue University Northwest, is vice president of the Indiana Conference of the American Association of University Professors.